A week passed in this manner.
“How’s it going, Glenn? How’s Cerve?” Sapphee asked as Glenn read a book in her lab.
“There hasn’t been much change,” he admitted.
“Is that so?” Sapphee wouldn’t look him in the eye.
Glenn had buried himself in literature, searching for a solution, but there were no documented cases of Cerberii heads not getting along. The solution he’d come up with—to establish a hierarchy of authority of the heads—hadn’t produced any results.
“Shall I make you some herbal tea?” Sapphee asked.
“Y-yes, please.”
“Just a moment.”
Her lab included a coal stove for brewing medicines, which was also convenient for making tea. As she boiled the water, a strange smell filled the air.
She’s not being…cold to me, exactly. But something’s up.
At the Academy, Sapphee was gentle and kind, just as Glenn remembered her being in childhood. And yet, she still wouldn’t meet his eyes. She was…distant, somehow. She was allowing him to use her lab freely while he tried to resolve Cerve’s problem, so he didn’t think she hated him…but still.
“I want some, yeah?”
“Okay, Lime. Get out of that bucket, then.”
“Heh, it’s just so comfy in here,” Lime said, peeking her head out of the bucket she’d poured herself into.
Apparently, she liked to store herself in containers. Slimes behaved so differently from most organisms that it was sometimes hard to believe they were living creatures. She popped out of her bucket with a squish and returned to her human shape.
“Here you are. Glenn,” Sapphee said. “So, what do you think? Can you help Cerve?”
“Yeah, umm.”
Glenn sipped the herbal tea as he tried to come up with the right words. There had been no significant changes over the past week. He was working hard to train Cerve’s shoulders into subordination, but it wasn’t the same as training dogs. No matter what methods he tried, they soon started fighting again.
He’d set out intending to make Orr the second-ranking head, but whenever Orr was given priority, he provoked Ery. Ery grew depressed when put last and snapped at Orr as he gloated.
“So…it’s not going well?”
“Er…”
Sapphee could see right through him.
“Are they really fighting over rank?” Lime asked.
At some point, a lemon had appeared in her herbal tea.
“I’m quite sure about it. Dogs don’t fight when there’s a hierarchy…”
“Hmm. But Cerve is a Cerberus, yeah?”
“Yes, but according to the literature—”
“Books are just books, yeah?” Lime pointed out.
Glenn wanted to protest, but he didn’t have any evidence to back up his words. The reality was that his methods had done nothing to resolve Cerve’s problem. Did that mean his hypothesis was wrong?
“Do you know what’s causing it, Lime?”
It was a childish retort. Even at fourteen, Glenn should have known better.
Lime just giggled. “No idea!”
“Then why—”
“But y’know, I can tell that your method isn’t right, yeah. I mean, Glenn, you just sit there staring at books instead of looking at Cerve.”
There was nothing he could do about her teasing. After all, she was an upperclassman.
“Huh?”
Flustered, Glenn closed the book he was scouring for information on the Cerberus species.
Now that he thought about it…was he really trying to force the text in the books to apply to Cerve? Had he decided from the start that this was a fight for hierarchy simply, because she looked like a dog?
“Ah, um, uh…sorry, I…”
“All you do is study, study, study. I mean, it’s a good thing to study hard, yeah? But that won’t turn you into a great doctor. Still, I’m sure it doesn’t feel great to be told off like this by the worst student in Cthulhy’s class!”
“N-no, that’s not…”
“But the truth is, I’ve been with Dr. Cthulhy long enough that I do know some things, yeah! If she were here right now, she’d say, ‘Neglect the patient, and you can’t cure the curable. You only get ten points.’”
Lime’s Cthulhy impression wasn’t very good, but the words were spot-on.
“So, you’ve known each other a long time, then?”
“Yeah. I met Dr. Cthulhy when I lived by the coast.”
Lime’s pigtails moved with her in affirmation. Her “hair” showed more emotion than her limbs did. Nearly ninety percent of a slime’s body was water. Therefore, many lived by oceans or lakes to maintain their required intake. By adjusting the osmotic pressure inside their body, they were able to absorb either freshwater or saltwater, and they could supposedly move around in water for short amounts of time. Glenn imagined they transformed their bodies to resemble jellyfish to do so.
Cerberii were a wonder, but slimes were something else altogether.
“Do you have any advice for Glenn, Sapphee?”
“Advice? Well…” Sapphee pondered as she drank her tea. “What do you think, Glenn? Do you think your diagnosis is incorrect?”
“Y-yes I do…”
“In that case, start over. Think back to what Cerve said.”
Glenn thought about it again. “Cerve came to Sapphee’s lab because she was concerned that her grades were slipping. And her grades are slipping because the heads on her shoulders are fighting…”
No. Wait, was that right? The only reason Glenn thought the drop in her grades was caused by the fighting was because Cerve had said so.
“I wonder if that’s the truth?” he muttered to himself.
Sapphee and Lime looked at each other and smiled. Glenn was too busy working things out to notice them.
“Cerve controls most of their body. So…would her performance be affected by some spats between her shoulders?”
Lime’s hair bobbed up and down in anticipation. “What do you mean?”
“Could it be that they’re fighting because her grades are dropping?”
“Whaaaaa?” Lime said in a long, airheaded drawl. Although, it was true that slimes didn’t actually possess brains. “That’s an interesting perspective… why would her dogs fight over her grades, though?”
“I don’t know…but Cerve seems convinced that Orr and Ery are the cause of her poor results…”
Glenn went through it again. He pictured how Cerve looked, and how the two dog heads looked. When had they started fighting? Maybe the reason lay there. Cerve said she didn’t know what had changed. But even if she couldn’t see it herself, maybe Glenn could figure it out.
“Glenn, can I give you one more piece of advice?”
“Huh? Oh, yes,”
Sapphee interrupted Glenn’s thoughts just as he was about to go down another dead end in his mind. It was as if she knew where he was headed. Her smile was just as gentle as it had been back when they’d lived together. It was comforting.
“Cerve’s three heads have individual brains, right?” she asked.
“Yes…at least, I think they do. It’s precisely because the heads are independent that the Cerberii have been able to survive in such harsh environments.”
“But that doesn’t mean they aren’t connected,” Sapphee said. “Cerve called her heads ‘family,’ but they’re even closer than that. They’re all connected in one body…Orr, Ery, and Cerve. Don’t forget that.”
“Yes, I understand.” Glenn nodded, finally getting it.
He’d been mistaken. Even if they had separate minds, the dogs on Cerve’s body were part of her. Just as you could never rank one of your hands higher than the other, trying to establish an order between Orr and Ery would never work.
He needed to think of another way, and the materials were already in front of him. Glenn’s head was spinning. The best-performing student at the Academy was about to use his brain to help Cerve.
Sapphee cleared her throat. “Ah, um…and also…Glenn?”
He looked at her quizzically.
“Umm… ahem…”
Was there something else he’d missed? For some reason, Lime was watching the two of them, grinning.
“Glenn…about me.”
“Huh?”
Sapphee thumped her tail loudly. Glenn couldn’t gauge her mood. Was it bashfulness? Frustration?
“I-I don’t like being treated as a senior… just talk to me like normal!” she blurted out.
“Ahh, r-right!” Glenn stammered.
He’d intended to be respectful, but it seemed to have had the opposite effect.
Could it be…
He thought back.
Did my actions cause Sapphee to act so cold?
He’d thought that she was avoiding him. But maybe he was the one who’d put up a wall to keep her out. Maybe that was why it had felt like they’d grown apart?
How could he still be so bad at interacting with people? He still didn’t have any friends at the Academy…but didn’t that mean that he should be trying even harder to fix his relationship with Sapphee?
“O-okay I understa—I mean…I got it, Sapphee.”
“Y-yes. I look forward to getting to know you again. Ahh, I was waiting to say that…”
They laughed awkwardly together. At least they’d narrowed the distance between them a bit. Lime looked on, laughing.
To an outside observer, it might have seemed like she was scheming, but Glenn was far too happy about reconnecting with his childhood friend to notice Lime’s expression.